ACRES Land Trust is hiring three summer land management interns, matching the college students with expert mentors in protecting, acquiring, researching and managing working land and natural areas. The program, in its seventh year, is supported by the Olive B. Cole Foundation to help northeast Indiana retain workforce talent by offering area secondary education students high-quality experiences in their fields.

“Thanks to the Olive B. Cole Foundation and years of history, our internship program works,” says Casey Jones, director of land management for the local nonprofit land trust. “ACRES interns help us mark property boundaries, repair and construct visitor amenities and fight non-native invasive species. It’s great that we’re able to help retain local talent, too.”

Land Management specialist and former intern, Evan Hill, will supervise the summer intern program.

ACRES’ land management specialist, Evan Hill, participated in the intern program in 2013 and 2014. Upon graduating from Purdue University in 2015 with a B. S. in Wildlife Management, he worked as a habitat technician for Colorado Park and Wildlife. Hill returned to northeast Indiana in October 2015. ACRES hired the former intern as a full-time employee in the summer of 2016, in part, to help manage the intern program.

The ACRES land management internship program provides job training for residents of DeKalb, LaGrange, Noble and Steuben Counties. Through the program, interns gain job skills in direct experience with a variety of high quality natural resource jobs available in northeast Indiana. As part of the experience, ACRES provides expert mentors in areas such as plant species inventory.

“The program offers interns the chance to participate directly in helping to achieve our strategic goals,” says Jason Kissel, executive director of Indiana’s oldest and largest local land trust. “We’re on pace to reach our ambitious goal to double land acquisition rates to achieve 7,500 acres protected by the end of this year. Our interns will be part of reaching this goal.”

Qualified applicants must reside in Noble, LaGrange, DeKalb or Steuben counties. Preference will be given to students seeking a natural resource-based undergraduate or graduate degree such as environmental studies. ACRES recruits its interns through community foundations and Indiana colleges and universities, Indiana Department of Natural Resources and partner organizations.

ACRES members protect 6,353 acres of local natural area and working land in northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio and southern Michigan, forever. Explore more than 70 miles of trails, take photographs, enjoy family time, get outdoors, plan a field trip, get fit, reflect on nature’s beauty or share an adventure, for free from dawn to dusk at a preserve near you: acreslandtrust.org/preserves. Connect with ACRES Land Trust at 260-637-2273, acreslandtrust.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/ACRES.LT.